Systems for printing and processing of mail pieces, including finishing of the mail pieces, are known in the art. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,278,947 to Balga, Jr. et al., the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference, discloses an automatic printing system for mail pieces, including an envelope feeder, a sheet feeder, a printer and a stacker, for example. In the disclosed system, the envelope feeder and sheet feeder are controlled to feed specific media to the printer which is controlled to print an envelope either before or after a sheet. The disclosed system does not provide for specific inserts, envelope printing or other finishing of individual mail pieces in conjunction with instructions which are easily modifiable by a user, and does not permit a user to select specific operations to be performed with specific mail pieces by simple addition of information to the data stream sent to a printer driver.
Merging of information into a single stream, for printing and mailing of different promotional items, is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,321,604. While items from many different promotions are commingled into a single printing stream, the disclosure fails to provide a system capable of individualizing mail piece contents by providing specific inserts in conjunction with a known data stream sent to a printer.
Under some circumstances it is desirable to be able to control both the subject matter to be printed and the physical contents of mail pieces being generated. For example, where a large number of individual letters, bills, or the like are printed in a single operation, letters of different sizes may be appropriate for different addressees, and it may be desirable to provide different inserts in mail pieces to different individuals. That is, it would be advantageous to have the ability to provide individual control and customization of mail pieces, on a piece by piece basis, as desired.
A capability to implement such individualization is frequently advantageous, as for example in a mailing of notification of alumni dues or notices to a large number of alumni of an educational institution, when a customized letter is more likely to elicit a more favorable response. Thus, where some alumni are known to be interested in a particular sport, such as football, while others are known to be interested in artistic performances, it is helpful to provide inserts identifying a schedule of artistic performances in letters sent to the latter and to provide inserts identifying a football schedule to accompany the same letters sent to the former. Similarly, it may prove more fruitful to solicit contributions when the letter to the former is printed on stock cut and shaped to resemble a football while the letter to the latter is printed on stock resembling a violin.
Additionally, when monthly statements are sent to a large number of clients, it is helpful and less wasteful to send a return envelope only to those clients having an outstanding balance due while sending no such envelopes to clients without an outstanding balance. Still further customization of mail pieces may be provided by varying the information printed on the envelopes from one piece to the next. For example, depending on the recipient's account status, it might be appropriate to print "Your account is past due" as a message line on some of the envelopes by not on others. Still further, in some circumstances it may be beneficial to vary the return address from one envelope to the next.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,628,249 to Cordery et al., the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference, discloses an apparatus for producing mail pieces, including plural printers for separately printing documents and envelopes for example, along with a mail finishing unit which, among other functions, inserts into envelopes the printed documents as well as pre-printed inserts to form the finished mail pieces. A host computer controls the apparatus in accordance with a single stream of job data, including headers defining mail piece attributes, as well as document and address data. The disclosed apparatus partitions the data stream and, in accordance therewith, controls the printers to separately print the documents and envelopes.
More particularly, a printer controller of the disclosed apparatus parses the job data received from the host computer and sends attribute data to a controller of the mail finishing unit while sending document data to a document printer engine. The finishing unit controller then controls production of the mail pieces in accordance with the data, by controlling operation of a number of known elements of a mail piece preparation system.
The finishing unit includes such elements of a mail piece preparation system as a flap opener, a document accelerator, an accumulator, an insert feeder, a folder, an inserter, and other devices known in the art.
The printer controller and finishing unit controller execute various software modules resident therein in accordance with the job data from the data stream, which includes both a job header including default attribute data, and a mail piece header including specific mail piece attribute data. A mail piece attribute generator converts received codes into commands for operation of the various elements, thus permitting preparation of mail pieces having different lengths, different contents, and with different inserts in a single mail piece production run.
A disadvantage of the system disclosed in the '249 patent relates to the manner of providing data to the printer controller and finishing unit controller. Specifically, in the system disclosed therein a driver receives document data from an application program such as a word processor, and accesses processing attributes and job data from a data store.
However, the data in the store does not provide for customization or individualization of the mail pieces. That is, only default data values to be used for each mail piece are stored therein, so that the mail pieces produced in a mailing job controlled thereby will be produced in an identical manner.
There is thus a need in the prior art for an arrangement for customizing and individualizing generation of mail pieces in a single mailing operation.
There is a more specific need in the prior art for method and apparatus for providing a variable number of additional inserts to be included in a mail piece, with different inserts or different numbers of inserts being included in different mail pieces generated in a single mailing operation.
There is still a more particular need in the prior art for an arrangement permitting simplified user intervention in a mailing operation to control various mail finishing devices, such as folders, sheet feeders, inserters, cutters and the like, without disrupting smooth flow of operations in a mass mailing.
It is accordingly an object of the invention to implement a mail producing operation which produces mail pieces having varying attributes. It is a more specific object of the invention to provide an arrangement for customizing and individualizing mail pieces produced in a single mail producing operation.
It is still a more particular object of the invention to provide an arrangement for including a variable number of inserts to be included in a mail piece, so that different inserts, or different numbers of inserts, are included in different mail pieces generated in a single mail producing operation. It is yet another object of the invention to permit simplified user intervention in a mailing operation to control various mail finishing devices, such as folders, sheet feeders, inserters, cutters and the like, without disrupting smooth flow of operations in a mass mailing.